Some state legislators want taxpayers to pay an extra $20 million in the next budget year to help local school systems offer healthier meals to elementary school students.
But the idea already has raised some concerns from a chief N.C. House education budget writer. “There’s no question in my mind that there [are] issues and that it’s needed, but given where we are, I’ve got real concerns about starting a new $20 million stream on a program that’s never been a state responsibility before,” said Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, during the meeting of the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee on Jan. 14.
Glazier and his colleagues expect to face a hole in the next state budget that some observers have projected to be as large as $3 billion. More-conservative estimates still peg the figure at more than $1 billion.
The Education Oversight Committee endorsed the $20 million in new child nutrition funding as part of a package of recommendations heading to the full General Assembly. A draft bill says the money would “ensure that child nutrition programs operating in the public schools have adequate funds to implement nutrition standards adopted by the State Board of Education for elementary schools.”
“Child Nutrition Programs can be part of the solution to the epidemic of overweight children in North Carolina,” according to the committee’s draft report. “However, it is more expensive to provide healthful foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain products and skim milk, and there are increased labor and equipment costs associated with providing healthy food choices.”
Those arguments did not persuade Glazier, who has chaired the House subcommittee in charge of drafting a state education budget. He reminded colleagues that he had objected to the $20 million when it was proposed in the last legislative session. “I continue to have concerns over the fact that it’s a straight $20 million bill, as opposed to setting out — or requiring that folks set out — some baseline responsibility that districts have and parents have.”
School districts across the state would collect the new funds based on the “number of reimbursable meals served to students in elementary schools,” according to the draft report.
“A district that’s charging $0.40 a lunch and perhaps not doing its full responsibility through its parents is going to get the same benefit as a district that’s really taxing its folks at the lunch stage — $2 a meal — and they’re really trying to do it as they’re supposed to,” Glazier said. “I’ve just got real concerns about us going on record and supporting a $20 million new stream this year with no tag, no responsibility, no minimum requirements by districts to comply.”
Glazier’s comments drew a response from Rep. Doug Yongue, D-Scotland, a retired school administrator and cochairman of the Education Oversight Committee. “I understand where you’re coming from,” Yongue assured Glazier. “There’s going to have to be some cleaning house and everybody singing off the same sheet of music and some direct monitoring. But, you know … the main factor we have is that [in] your low-wealth areas, there’s some folks that are just … in order to meet the current guidelines of providing a meal or balancing the budget, you know, they have to go to pizzas and French fries.”
Yongue reminded colleagues that they’ve been pushing for the $20 million in new spending for “three or four years.” “We finally ended up with getting $4 million at the ‘big-chair’ level,” he said, referring to negotiations among the full chairs of the legislature’s budget-writing appropriations committees. “Before that was over, we had a member of the committee up there make a motion to take part of that out, and we had about $2 million left.”
Further negotiations stripped the final $2 million of “seed money” out of the last budget, Yongue said. “We know it works,” he said. “It’s just a matter of monitoring to make sure we spend it wisely.”
Concerns about inadequate oversight are not limited to child nutrition programs, Yongue said. “I think your comment and concern could be spread across the board to about everything we’re doing,” he told Glazier. “I mean, you know, we need to monitor a lot of things with the money sliding away.”
Another retired school administrator echoed Yongue’s comments supporting increased funding. “When you change to try to serve more nutritious meals, you just don’t get as many sales per day, and that’s really hurting all of them,” said Rep. Larry Bell, D-Sampson. “If we’re going to make that provision for them to serve [that] nutritious food, we’re going to have to help them in some way.”
At least one lawmaker sided with Glazier in the debate over spending new money. “My feeling is that money is going to be exceptionally tight,” said Rep. Curtis Blackwood, R-Union. “We have a major problem with a third of our population being obese, and a third of the population being overweight, so it’s a very valid concern. But I think we’re going to have to make some very difficult choices. Expanding new funding is something that maybe ought to be looked at three times.”
One legislator urged his colleagues to put off the funding debate to a later date. “This bill has got a long way to go, like all of these other bills,” said Rep. Joe Tolson, D-Edgecombe. “This is just making a statement that I think this body says there’s a need to look at nutritious meals. It may be that we cannot fund it, but at least we’re making a statement, I think, from this committee that it’s an issue that we need to address.”
Lawmakers made no statements about the problems Carolina Journal has documented with free and reduced-price lunch programs in North Carolina’s public schools. “A majority of sampled applicants enrolled in the free and reduced-price lunch program in North Carolina can’t prove eligibility to participate, according to verification summaries from the state’s 115 school districts,” CJ reported online in November.
Supporters expect no decision on the $20 million in new funding until the state budget is finalized. Gov. Beverly Perdue will submit a budget plan to legislators after they return to work Wednesday. Lawmakers will then draft their own proposals. The governor and lawmakers will try to finalize a spending plan by the start of the new budget year July 1.
Mitch Kokai is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.